A WWE diva gets the axe.
Survivor: China Blog
2nd Elimination: Ashley
Episode 2 is generally one of the weakest episodes of a Survivor season. You’ve gotten past the thrill of the premiere and are left knowing it will be a good 5-6 episodes before things really start to heat up. Everyone is still trying to feel each other out, so there’s not a whole lot going on in the way of strategy either. Besides the obligatory bickering between the three or four individuals who can’t grasp the concept that shouting makes you look insane and puts a huge target on your back, not a whole lot goes on. With that being said, I’ve decided to forego the traditional “three observations” and take a look at the remaining 14 survivors and rank their chances to win.
Last week, here’s how I broke down nine of the Survivors:
No Chance: Chicken, Denise, Courtney
I Almost Liked Them: Dave, Ashley, Aaron
My Top 3: Jean-Robert, James, Todd
After getting a second look, I definitely made some poor decisions. For example, Jean-Robert has managed to turn his entire tribe against him, and Dave and Ashley went from “I Almost Liked Them” to “I Can’t Stand Them”. There were also people who I overlooked because I didn’t even know they existed. Thankfully, Todd continued to prove that he has game and left me feeling secure in my early pick to win. But enough about last week, onto the player rankings and analysis.
The Eliminated:
16. Chicken
15. Ashley – Last week I touted how Ashley was a WWE Wrestler and was therefore a prime candidate to do well in the game. However, after a little more research, I found out that Ashley got into the WWE by winning a reality-show competition. There’s a big difference between the people who win those reality shows and the real WWE Wrestlers who get signed because of their talent. The reality-show winners are a gimmick who end up fighting on obscure cable channels at eleven o’clock on a Friday night. Most likely Ashley’s made an fleeting appearance on Monday Night RAW, and has probably never been involved in a Pay Per View event. So is she technically a WWE Wrestler? I guess so. But that whole “hard work, and handling pain and fatigue” speech I gave has been rendered null and void by this recent revelation. I feel deceived.
The Next To Go:
14. Pieh-Gee – The girl is annoying and doesn’t bring much to the table during challenges. I think she’ll be the next victim when the Yellow Tribe loses a third straight immunity challenge.
13. Jean-Robert – The man has done everything possible to make his team hate him. He sleeps all the time, and he’s also made the cardinal mistake of getting on the leader’s bad side. (See how well that turned out for Ashley!) During an interview he made it seem like this was all part of his master plan to set the bar low and then soar over it. I’m not buying it one bit. This isn’t strategy. It’s laziness. The way Jean-Robert is playing Survivor is the equivalent of purposely losing half your pot in poker on the first hand. Yeah it makes you less of a threat, but it also makes you the most likely to be out of the game next.
The Weak Links:
12. Sherea – The fact that her entire tribe may have voted for Ashley and she was probably the only one to vote for Dave doesn’t bode well for Sherea. I have a feeling the Yellow team is going to continue to hemorrhage tribe members and Sherea isn’t providing her team with a good reason to keep her around.
11. Denise – We haven’t heard much from the lunch lady yet, which leads me to believe that she’s probably not an overly-charismatic individual. When it comes time for the Red tribe to start devouring its own, Denise will probably be the next to go after the unpopular Jean-Robert.
The Fall-guy:
10. Dave – “Zoolander”, as he was appropriately nicknamed by Ashley, has proven to be a horrendous leader for the Yellow tribe. He may have had some good ideas like the fire pit, but working the team like slaves and denying them food isn’t going to help them win immunity, and it certainly hasn’t made him very popular. If the downward trend continues, which I’m guessing it will, you can be certain that a mutiny is going to take place.
The Over-matched:
9. Erik – He seems like a decent guy who’s just trapped on the wrong team. If they merge at nine and are down in numbers, look for him to get picked off first as the most “physical” threat.
8. Frosti – This may very well be the lamest nickname in Survivor history. I just had to put that out there.
7. Jaime – Like I mentioned with Erik, these three people seem to be decent competitors who were handed five horrible teammates. Jaime seems to have the social aspect of the game down pretty well. If they merged at nine, it’s not inconceivable that she could flip two of the Red tribesmen and regain the numbers. Unfortunately, I just don’t see that happening as I’m giving the next two castaways the title of…
The Naive:
6. James – I could be very wrong about this, but I don’t think that James is a master strategist. He seems to be very overwhelmed socially and may end up just following Leslie’s lead. I don’t see him formulating a massive coup to flip the balance of power in his tribe after the merge, which is exactly what he’ll need to do to win the game. There’s no way his crafty teammates will let him hang around once individual immunity comes into play.
5. Aaron – Todd and Amanda formed their alliance and brought Aaron on as a third. What he doesn’t know is that he’s the odd man out in this three-way and that the two are primarily using him as a target to deflect attention from their schemes. Could Todd and Amanda stay true to their pact to take this alliance to the final three? Maybe. But they’d be crazy not to ditch Aaron in favor of the much weaker Leslie and Courtney once it’s down to the last five. Aaron is simply too large of a threat to run the table in challenges once James is disposed of. The second he fails to win immunity is the second those two should cut Aaron loose and sprint to the cash.
4. Leslie – Could Jaime turn Leslie after the merge? Well, she did hand her the clue to the hidden idol which probably earned her some trust. But Leslie appears to already be eating out of Todd’s hand as she inexplicably decided to share the clue with him. I wouldn’t count her out as she’s got God on her side, but I don’t see her developing into anything more than a pawn without some supernatural help.
The Tag-along:
3. Courtney – Who do you want to be sitting across from in the end? With the exception of the Chicken’s and Jean-Robert’s who won’t sniff the merge, Courtney has got to be the answer. I fully expect that whoever wins that final immunity challenge will be taking her along for the ride. Do I think she’ll beat anyone? No. But she’s probably the best bet out of anyone to be sitting there, which gives her the No. 3 spot.
On a side note, the fiancé was getting annoyed at Courtney’s horrible personality and broke out with this little gem:
“You can totally tell that she’s not from New York. People from New York don’t act that way. She probably lived somewhere else and then moved to New York. Now she thinks she’s cool and tries to act mean and trash anyone who’s not from New York.”
I looked it up, and sure enough, Courtney was born and raised in Boston and just recently moved to The Big Apple. I felt that was a pretty impressive call.
The Front-Runners:
2. Amanda – While watching the opening credits, Amanda popped up on the screen and I was like “Who’s that?”. I really wish that they’d given Amanda more screen time in the first episode because I very well may have picked her. She’s got the strategy-thing down, is on the good team, is actively seekig out alliances, and doesn’t come off half as slimy as Todd. If it really does come down to the two of them, I have a feeling Amanda would garner most of the vote. I don’t think I’ve ever been as impressed with a girl’s game early on. There’s none of the usual “Let me flirt with everyone”, or “Let me sit back and sneak in at the end”. She’s playing the game and playing it well.
1. Todd – I’m not ranking Todd #1 because he’s my pick. In fact I was planning on giving Amanda this spot until one thought crossed my mind: If it comes down to the wire, Todd is more likely to turn on Amanda than the other way around. I could definitely see him offing her in the Final Four and going with Courtney and Leslie. Would turning on both Aaron and Amanda create too much bad blood to secure the final votes? Maybe. But for some reason nobody seems to realize how slimy Todd really is. If they did, do you think the Christian Radio Host would be sharing secrets with him? He seems like the kind of guy who will end up slitting everyone’s throat while they have a smile on their face.
So those are my Survivor “Power Rankings” after two episodes. I’m toying around with the idea of doing these every week minus the long explanations, as they are likely to change regularly and will get completely flipped around if they start swapping tribe members. In fact, I think you can count on it – Just like Todd’s victory!
